Religion and civil liberty

t'm

T^'Si

-^-M-

:' ^^

i.-. r

^^^X

-^01

J8l5itc iiatotttal ©hrarjj

THE G<FT OF PRESIDENT WHITE

,K,pn BY THE UNIVERSITY .N ACCORD-
„,..r..NHO BY^- THE PROV,S,ONS

OF THE GIFT

Cornell University Library
PR 6003.E47R38

Religion and civil liberty.

3 1924 013 585 959

The original of tliis book is in
tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013585959

C 197

^ RELIGION
AND CIVIL LIBERTY

By HILAIRE BELLOC

LONDON

THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY

69 SouTHWARK Bridge Road, London, S.E. i

■—a »' «« (jl ii i r jAiw> > ) ' ■ '

>RICE TWOP£^:GE.

Books for Catholic Defence

Five Volumes, Cloth, 1/3 each, net.
Each Volume complete in itself.

Some Protestant Fictions Exposed

A collection of tellfng papers, by various authors, in each of which some
anti-CathoHc charge or criticism is examined and answered. The first volume
deals mainly with Convents and Convent Life ; other subjects included in- the
volumes are the Church and the Bible, "the Gunpowder Plot, Papal Infallibility,
Indulgences, the " Iron Virgin," the Story of the "Holy Donkey," Pastor
Chiniquy's Charges, etc.

Three Volumes, Cloth, 1/3 each, net.
Each Volume complete in itself.

The Antidote

Vol. I, edited iy the Rev. J. Gerard, S.J.
Vols. II &• III, edited by the Rev. J. Keating, S.J.

As its name implies, The Antidote is a remedy against many poisonous
calumnies. The contents of each volume cover a very large and varied field.
There are notes exposing historical blunders, answering Rationalist objections, -
explaining points of Catholic doctrine, and dealing in other ways with anti-
Catholic prejudice and credulity. The amount of research embodied in these
pages makes them useful and valuable in the highest degree.

Cloth, 1/3 net.

Concerning Jesuits

Containing a short history of the Jesuits, by the Comtesse de Courson, and
an account of Jesuit organization and principles, by Father Joseph Rickaby, S. J.,
this volume deals also with a number of specific charges levelled against the
Society of Jesus. The various papers brought together afford a mine of
information, and supply a ready answer to many calumnies concerning the
Jesuits which are to be met with in Protestant literature. A companion
voluine, at the same price, is that of JESUIT BIOGRAPHIES,
showing what manner of men the Society has produced.

Cloth, 1/3 net.

A Brace of Bigots

(Df. HoFton and Mr. Joseph Hocking)

Contains a most complete exposure of the false statements regarding the
Catholic Church put forward by these writers under the auspices of the National
Council of Evangelicai Free Churches. An appendix to this volume, especially
devoted to an analysis of the statements contained in Messrs. Horton and
Hocking's book, "Shall Rome Reconquer England ?" is issued as a penny
pamphlet entitled THE FEAR OF ROME.

Catholic Truth Society, 69 Southwark Bridge Road, Lokdon, S.E. i

RELIGION AND CIVIL LIBERTY

By HILAIRE BELLOC

THERE was lately published an article by Mrs.
Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner called- " Christianity
versus Liberty." It is an excellent example of that
interesting point in modern history — I mean the mis-
conception which anti-Catholic historians have of a
conflict between the Catholic Church and civil liberty.

Mrs. Bonner's article deals with the decision given on
May 14th of this year (1917) in the Bowman case upon
appeal to the House of Lords. This decision was to the
effect that the Rationalist Press Association was to be
capable of inheriting money under a will, even though
the -essential principle of that Association were admitted
to be propaganda against, certain Catholic dogmas.

I say " Catholic dogmas " because it will be familiar
to all my readers that the Protestant legislators and
Judges who had made -bequests against "Christianity"
illegal in this country, intended by that word, not the
universal body of Catholic doctrine, but a particular
selection or part of that doctrine. When they used the
word " Christianity," they meant certain Catholic
dogmas which they had chosen to retain to the exclusion
of others. The various Protestant sects in Britain all
rejected (for instance) the doctrine of Purgatory, but
long held in common the immortality of the human soul
with its co-relative doctrine of eternal happiness or
eternal misery. Most of them retained for many
generations the dogma of the Incarnation, and all of
them, in some form or other, the dogma of the Atone-
ment, etc. These dogmas, which they all held in
common, the- otherwise conflicting Protestant sects of
this country called " Christianity." These selected
Catholic dogmas wei-e believed (through an ignorance of
history) to be the "core" or "essence" of Christian
teaching, whereas, in point of fact, they were only a

2 Religion and Civil Liberty

certain batch of ancient Catholic doctrines which hap-
pened to suit the heresiarchs of the sixteenth century to
the exclusion of other quite equally important dogmas
which those reformers did not like.

Ever since the Reformation it had been the practice
of the Judges (who in this country make the law as well
as administer it) to decide that a legacy was not valid if
it were left with the object of combating one pf thesfe
selected dogmas. You could leave money tq attack the
Real Presence or the Sacrament of Penance, but you
could not leave money to attack the Incarnation
because that was one of th^ dogmas enjoying privilege
as a part of " Christianity " — i.e. the doctrines common
to the Protestant sects. Now the Rationalist Press
Association combats all Catholic dogmas, including
those retained by the Reformers. Therefore those who
would have benefited by the upsetting of the Bowman
will appealed to precedent for the bequest to be set aside.

On the appeal reaching the House of Lords five out
of six Judges decided that such bequests were now to
be permitted — -the Lord Chancellor alone dissenting.
It is only eleven years since an exactly contrary decision
was given. This was in the case of the Oldham Secular
Society, when it was decided that a body designed to
attack these Catholic dogmas chosen by the Reformers
could not inherit a legacy. What the present Bowman
judgement means, therefore, is that the Judges now
estimate that English opinion as a whole is indifferent
to attack upon these selected Reformation dogmas, and
desires freedom of discussion upon them to be the rule.
As interpreters of this general feeling the Judges have
made a new law, which will be binding until some other
Judges happen to decide otherwise.

In this view of theirs that modern Englishmen had
ceased, for the most part, to object to an attack on any
Catholic dogma — rcven, say, the existence of God — their
Lordships- were certainly perfectly right, and their
majority honestly interpreted the general will of the
nation -for the voicing of which this power of legislation
is said to reside in the Bench.

So far so good. But what follows is another matter.

Religion and Civil Liberty 3.

It being now laid down as a new law tliat money can
be left for the propagation of opinions adverse to those
Catholic dogmas which were selected as tenable by the
Reformers, the authoress of the article I have mentioned
comments upon this new law and calls it an advance
towards something admittedly good called " Civil
Liberty."

I suppose that 99 English people out of a hundred
would comment upon the decision as she does. Yet
all those 99 people would be wrong and the hundredth
person would be right. The new law is no advance
towards civil liberty. It does not increase the area of
the field wherein an individual may act at his discretion
— a field which has been narrowed with startling
rapidity during the present generation — it merely
registers a change in the religion of the English.

This change in English religion does indeed enlarge
freedom of action in ■ one very small part of men's
activities. It allows one to leave money directly for a
certain purpose which would anyhow have been left
indirectly, by a small technical change, for the same
purposes. But at the same time this change in the
religion of the English is curtailing liberty over very
much wider areas of action, for instance, in the expres-
sion of humour or the consumption of malted liquors.
In both these provinces of daily action common to
nearly all men (which- discussion on dogma is not) all
the liberty of one hundred years ago has disappeared,
and the loss of .it is directly connected with this change
in religion.

When the same authoress goes on to consider this
supposed advance in liberty as a conquest against some-
thing which she also calls " Christianity," and which
she supposes to be the permanent enemy of civil liberty,
she is again expressing an opinion which would be
vaguely accepted, not, perhaps, by so large a pro-
portion of our fellow citizens, but certainly by a great
majority of them. Yet that opinion also is false, and
those who fall into this error fall into it from the lack
both bi historical knowledge and of a clear examination
of first principles.

4 Religion and Civil Liberty

Let us consider what we mean by the words " civil
liberty " and in what the thing these words connote is
thought good.

The authorities of the community exist for the
purpose of maintaining the community, that is, of
maintaining- (i) its material existence, and (a)- the
character or tradition which makes it what it is. This
end to their action gives those actions all their validity.
You could not have a community in which civil authori-
ties did hot exercise power of restraint over the membets
thereof. In the absence of such the mere material
framework of the community would fall to pieces, and
it is an implied injunction upon the authorities which
civilly govern the community that they should preserve
not only its material structure, but its character or soul.
In proportion as this end is perfectly attained we speak
of the community as politically free, although the
restraints to which members therein are put by the
common authority may be very severe.

For instance, in time of war, when the comrriunity
is threatened with foreign conquest, the authorities
may compel the full service of any man, including the
sacrifice of life itself, in the defence of the State ; yet
the man so conscripted is politically free, and the State
to which he belo^s is essentially a free State.

If such orders came from a foreigner, compelling a
man to such sacrifices for a community that was not
his own, then that man would be unfree, and the com-
munity thus subjected to alien authority would be unfree
also. But this " Political Liberty," the most necessary
form of liberty, is only a condition of the narrower thing
which we call especially " Civil Liberty." A community
must be free from alien government for its citizens to be
free at all, and it must have the right to preserve its own
character by the extrusion of practices which it feels
fatal to that character. But when we talk of " Civil
Liberty " within such a self-governing State, we mean
something else.

The words " civil liberty " mean much what was
meant by the old phrase "Liberty of the Subject,"
that is the power of a member of the State^ an indi-

Religion and Civil Liberty 5

vidual, or a corporation less than the State and a part
of it, to act in a certain large number of things according
to its own will and free from the control of the common
authorities. It is- in this sense that we would say, for
instance, " during war civil liberty must be restricted,"
and it is in this sense that we speak of this or that
measure as " an undue restriction of liberty." What
we mean by the word " undue " is that the restriction
imposed by the common authority is not, in our judge-
ment, necessary to the preservation of the State either
in material structure or in character, and is therefore'
not within the moral province of the civil authorities.

In practice the area of such " civil liberty " in a
healthy and politically free State, the proportion of acts
which the individual or the corporation may perform at
will, without restriction by the State, is always very
large. It always includes by far the greater part of
one's daily activities, at any rate in normal times ; and
we regard the extension of this " civil liberty," quite
apart from national or political liberty, as a good ; we
jealously watch encroachments upon it as dangerous,
that is, as liable to produce great evil, for four reasons : —

First, we know by our reason that the State is not an
end in itself, but only exists for the happiness of the
members — ^real bodies and souls — that make it up.
Therefore each must have the power of testifying to the
success or failure of state measures towards that end,
and of himself furthering it.

Secondly, we discover by experiment and from the
example of history how necessary to the health of the
State as a whole, how necessary to its vigorous common
life, is this pawer of reaction within it.

Thirdly, we all know that there is in huftian nature a
defect of tyranny — ^the love of " running other people," of
seeing them obey you. Therefore the human agent
of civil authority must be subject himself to restriction
and limits as of appointment or custom.

Lastly, one of the attributes of a conscious individual
being is the desire and instinct, or what might be called
(without too much exaggeration), the sheer necessity for
self-expression, An undue restriction exasperates this

6 Religion and Civil Liberty

instinct and forbids the satisfactipn of this desire. In so
miich it warps and weakens and inflames the individual,
makes him unhappy and defeats the end for which the
State itself exists, which is the happiness of its members.

Now civil liberty being of this nature, and being by
common consent a good, and any unnecessary loss of it
an evil, it will at once be granted that the imposition of a
- special forni of thought or philosophic expression upon
the mass of free men against their will, is a restriction of
the gravest kind. In common (and true) language, it is
tyranny.

The philosophy or religion of a man, and much more
of a corporate mass of men, is the root cause of all
their goings on. From it springs their whole method
of life. The common philosophy pr religion — ^which-
ever you like to call it — oi a body of meri, and their
doctrine, what they believe with regard to the nature
of things, cannot live without the power to express
itself. If, for instance, the Authorities should punish
411. those who to-day propose the "single tax" policy,
and was successful in its policy ; if by its. action it
ended in preventing anyone from printing or writing
or saying that this tax was advisable, and from present-
iiig "the arguments in favour of that view,- then the
thought itself would very soon die out. And every time
it naturally sprang up again anew it would be stifled at"
birth.

Well, the conception that a strong and organised.
religious system in alliance with the State is thus the
enemy of " civil liberty " because it tends to forbid the
expression of arguments and opinions contrary to itself,
is based upon this parallel. The State or the authori-
ties are regarded as one party ; the generality of men
as another. The State, supporting a religion, is con-
ceived of as supporting something external to its
liieinbers, and even alien to them, and a conflict is
thought to exist between State and citizens whenever the
laws of the State restrain in any measure an attack upon
the' religion of its civilisation.

., That is the first limh of the proposition I am here
axamining. Men read in a book that the authorities of

Religion and Civil Liberty 7

Timlpuctoo forbade pagans to preach against Moham-
medapism. They conceive of the people of Timbuctoo
as standing indifferent, ready to hear both sides and
attached to neither. They conceive of the authorities
coming in as outsiders and arbitrarily supporting one
contention against the other. They . argue that an
offence is thus committed against a piece of normal self-
expression which does not concern either the material
existence or the character of the nation. In other words,
they conclude that it is an undue restriction of liberty.

The second limb of the proposition is the converse of
this, and is the affirmation that the absence of an
organised religious system, or at any rate the non-
possession by any such system of civil authority, is an
extension of normal liberties and a good. That pro-
position in both its limbs ran universally through the
nineteenth century, and the fallacy which it contains
coloured men's minds even more strongly than the other
contemporary fallacies, such as the policy which led
men to believe that representation was the equivalent
of direct self-government, or the fallacy which led to the
still more extraordinary economic error that the
material well-being of a community was to be judged
by its total wealth, no matter how distributed !

Wherein, then, lies the fallacy of reasoning in this
double proposition : (i) that restrictions imposed by the
organised religion of the commonwealth are an undue re-
striction of liberty, and (2) that the absence of such organ-
ised religion, or of its civil recognition, will extend liberty ?

The fallacy lies in the idea or phantasm of a Church
in some way opposed to the medium in which it lives.
The error consists in conceiving of two things as quite
distinct which are, in reality, either one, or at any rate
as intimately mingled as is the human soul with the
living human body. We all ought to be familiar with the
fundamental Catholic dogma that a living body is not a
dead material body with a soul stuck into it, but that
the complete unity, man, is a combination of body and
of soul. Now a truth of the same sort, requiring no
revelation but self-evident to anyone who has ever seen
a community .of human beings, is the truth that such a

8 Religion and Civil Liberty

community invariably possesses a philosophy, a way of
looking at the world, which gives it its character : and
this common view of a community is nearly always a
religion. When that philosophy or way of looking at
the world is a highly organised religion, or if not a
highly organised, at any rate a very definite religious
atmosphere and method, the characteristic savour of
which can be immediately recognised, then the preserva-
tion of this characteristic mark is as much, as naturally,
and 2& inevitably a function of government as the keep-
ing of the soul united with the body (that is, the pre-
vention of death) is a natural, instinctive, and inevitable
action upon the part of the individual.

Complete States cannot help persecuting religious
tenets opposite to their own. To cease doing so is to
commit State suicide.

The word " persecute " is unpopular and has false
connotations. I use it boldly in its original sense — " to
follow up — or hunt — by legal action." And I say that
such action aiming at the extirpation of practices^
destructive to the character of a Stated and of propa-
ganda leading to such practices is not only normal to a
State but inevitable, and in point of fact never absent.

Thus modern England would necessarily persecute a
habit of cannibalism should it arise, or a habit of human
sacrifice ; and would necessarily persecute propaganda
leading to either.

To see how true the proposition is we have only to
consider some point upon which all or nearly all our
contemporaries are strongly agreed, and draw a parallel'
between it and some point upon which they were all
strongly agreed, though they are so no longer.

The English Protestant community was once (not so
very long ag6) strongly agreed — the overwhelming
mass of it — on a certain Catholic dogma, to wit, that
marriage was indissoluble. It was part of the religion
by which that community lived. Divorce could be
bought by a few very rich men, but even so it was
disgraceful. The community of the present day has,
for the most part, lost this dogma. The great mass of
non-Catholic men and women in this country have

Religion and Civil Liberty 9

abandoned the sacramental idea of marriage, with all its
consequences. They now regard marriage as a civil and,
in various degrees, even as a terminable contract.

Now a person falling into the very unhistorical, and
(I should have thought !) obvious error, wjiich I am
here exarnining, will probably say with regard to the
older state of affairs : " The Church with its dogma of
marriage as a sacrament was here the enemy of liberty."

Very well, then, let us take an exact modern parallel.
The mass of our fellow citizens to-day still regard the
marriage union as rightly monogamous. Suppose a
practice of polygamy to arise, first secret, then in-
sufficiently repressed by the State, next tolerated, and
at last universal. 'What should we think of a future
writer so muddle-headed as to say : " The Ministers-of
the various Protestant sects in England in the early
twentieth century imposed a gross restriction upon
human liberty. They strove— and successfully strove—-
to prevent a man from having a large number of legal
,wives at the same time " ? We should know that such
a man was talking nonsense. In the first place, it is not
the ministers of the various Protestant spcts, Anglican,
Quaker and the rest, which impose this restriction ; it is
the general will of the community, in conformity to
which general ■*ill the civil authorities of the community
act. And in the second place, the religious system
which imposes this restriction, not by force but as an
influence, is not something separate from the English
people, but part and parcel of them at the present day.
You could not get an English constituency to vote for a
programme of -polygamy. You would not find any
portion of English society tolerating a polygamous
' colony of their fellow citizens in their midst. All average
English men and women (to-day) would be shocked to find
themselves in a polygamous household, just as Irish men
and women are shocked to find themselves in a house-
hold proceeding from divorce.

When the thought of a community loses its organisa-
tion and becomes vague on vital points of public doctrine ;
when some hitherto long existing social system is in
dissolution ; when there is a chaos in, or an indifference to.

lo Religion and Civil Liberty

what were once universally accepted doctrines ; then
of course the debate of such doctrines becomes normal
and a restriction of the debate abnormal ; in other words,
an undue interference with civil liberty. But in those
very moments of doubt or debate on doctrines which
were once universally accepted, you can invariably
discover other doctrines which men hold just as firmly
as they used to hold the old ones, and against the dis-
ruption of which they will act with just as much vigour
as their fathers acted against the propagation of what
was heresy to them.

Take, for instance, the modern doctrine of nationality,
and the duties consequent upon that doctrine. The
Modern State, when it is in any peril, when the con-
tinuity of the natiqn is threatened by foreign attack,
does not tolerate the expression of opinion in favour of,
and the' attempted conversion of men to, the antagon-
istic idea that "the nation" is a mere figment of the
mind, has no claims, and can make no call in the name
of patriotism. We severely punish such propaganda,
and in doing so our authorities express without a doubt
what is now the general will. Yet who can pretend that
such a doctrine is immutable or eternal, even in claim,
as are (in their claim) the dogmas of a -religion ?'

To sum up this part of the argument: What people
really mean when they say that the restriction of
activity against some religious doctrine is an undue
restriction of liberty, is that the religious doctrine does
not matter very much and does not really. inform the
community of which the authorities thus act. When
people do really think that any opinion matters very
much — as, for instance, to-day, an opinion on patriotism
— they applaud every effort to maintain that opinion,
and if it be attacked or undermined to a dangerous
degree they applaud and support the overt policy of
preventing such propaganda by force.

Such an attitude is in the nature of things. To
expect its opposite is to expect a contradiction in terms.
It would be impossible to define the State or the com-
munity without one's definition including such action,
and such action is invariably to be found at work

Religion and Civtl Liberty ii

wherever human communities have been or are. The
supposed exceptions are never more than cases in which
several communities (as in rjost Mohammedan countries,
for instance) are existing side by side.

The co-relative error (I mean the error that liberty is
extended by the conversion from conviction to scepti-
cism on transcendental doctrine), which took in so many
of our immediate predecessors in the nineteenth century,
should be equally* plain. A present temper sceptical
towards doctrines formerly held does not necessarily
increase the field of civil liberty. A temper thus
grown sceptical is only sceptical towards one part of the
things of the mind, and is just as strongly attached to
doctrine in another sphere as the most highly organised
religion could be. The same man, for instance, ■ who
thinks it an extension of civil liberty that we now permit,
and even applaud, a violent attack upon the Incarna-
tion and the Trinity by the Regius Professor of History
at Cambridge, Mr. Bury, will think it quite natural that
a Catholic child shall be compelled by law to attend a
school in which Protestant history is taught. That is
the state of the law under which we are now living in
England. A poor man who cannot afford to pay special
masters is compelled to send his child to be formed in a
school where the history at any rate must be " non-
sectarian," which means, in this country acutely anti-
Catholic. Your so-called " agnostic " (nearly always in
this country a thorough Protestant) sees no infringe-
ment of civil liberty here, because the history thus
maintained by force is that which he himself was taught
and still holds, and which the great mass of his con-
temporaries hold.

To conclude, the attitude of mind- which we have
been examining — the idea that a community extends
civil liberty by tolerating an attack on its own prin-
ciples — is an erroneous one ; and it is erroneous because
its dupes are not accustomed to examine their own first
principles.

It is not only erroneous, it is exceedingly dangerous.
The man who does harm knowing he is doing harm
is less of an external peril than the man who does

12 ^ Religion and Civil Liberty

harm unwittingly — for upon the latter there is no check
of conscience.

Now that is exactly the position of your ,. modern
popular; sceptic in almost every case. ; He has a religion
or philosophy as every man must have. He thinks
it his bounden duty not only to spread it, but to sup-
press opposition to it. So long as he is out of power his
attempt to. suppress opposition is only indirect. Give
him power and it becomes direct at once. One of the
minor consequences of his religion^ foi* instance, is the
conception that physical well-being is the end of life.
Hence the " Eugenist." He is quite prepared to»
sacrifice in the pursuit of this doctrine things essential
to the most fundamental liberties of man. He is cheer-
fully prepared to separate parent from child, to mutilate
the weak and the infirm, to condemn specially chosen
men to servitude, even to, kill the innocent. And, in
general, his false philosophy will act with just as much
vigour and with just as much restriction as ever did true
religion — but with consequences fatal to m_ankind.

When I was in the House of Commons one of the
Professional Politicians whom I found more tolerable
than most, argued with me in an undertone on religion,
while some swindler or other was promoting a Bill
for filling his own pockets. This man said to me —
being a sincere atheist, and thereby more honest than
the run of the place — " Every religion has its hypnosis."
To which I answered, " And none more than yours,. I
will bargain you do not play cards." Nor did he. . If I
had gone further I should probably have found hini a
teetotaller and a vegetarian, and cheerfully ready to
prosecute a man for drinking a glass of beer or eating a
mutton chop. Yet he thought himself a champion of
" civil liberty " — and a sceptic in morals to boot !

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, LONDON.

B. — Marchj igtS.

Cloth, Crown 8vo. PRICE Is. 3d. net.

THE CHURCH AT HOME
AND ABROAD

Edited by the Rev. C. LATTEY, S.J.

A series of papers (which can also be had separately, price One Penny
each) describing the present position of the Catholic Church in various
countries, with-reference to historical development and national circum-
stances._^ The contents of the first volume, which will be followed by
others, include : —

THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. By the

Right Rev. Bishop Graham.

' ' This admirable little pamphlet breaks new ground . . . every page is
full of interest."^— Co^AoKc Times.

THE CHURCH IN THE NETHERLANDS.

By the Lady Acton.

" A mine of useful information, difiicult otherwise to be got at, is Lady
Acton's sketch of the present position of the Church in the Netherlands,
with a g-ood statistical appendix." — Month.

THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. By the

Rev. C. Lattky, S.J.

"Has acquired an interest and significance not contemplated when it
issued from the press."— Z>kWx« Rervieai.

THE CHURCH IN PORTUGAL. By the

Rev. C. Torrend, S.J.

" The work of one who knows the subject from the inside, and has felt
in his own person the diabolical persecutfon still raging in that desolate
portion of the Vineyard." — Month.

THE CHURCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. By

the Hon. A. Wilmot, K.S.G-

"The history of the Church's progress in South Africa is thrillin|f and
romantic, a fact of which' we have a vivid glimpse, at least, in this very
readable booklet." — Lamp'.

THE MISSIONS OF INDIA. By A. Hilliard
Atteridge.

" Mr. A. Hilliard Atteridge writes graphically and informingly on the
missions of India." — Catholic Book Notes.

THE MISSIONS OF CHINA. By the same.

" Mr. Hilliard Atteridgc's carefully compiled and graphic account of the
missions of China should do something to stimulate missionary zeal." — Month.

Catholic Truth Society, 69 Southwark Bridgb Road, IjOndon, S.E.

Price 2d. Monthly ; 2/6 per annum, post free.

Catholic Book Notes

Edited ijy JAMES BRITTEN, K.C.S.G.

Hxin. Secretary, Catholic Truth Society.

CATHOLIC BOOK NOTES. is a monthly record of
Current Literature, 'either written by or of special interest to
Catholics. The reviews, although necessarily brief, are SufiScient
to indicate the nature and value (or the reverse) of the' books/
noticed, and are undertaken by cornpetent authorities in various
branches of Literature. The Monthly List of New Publications
written by Catholics, or dealing with subjects in which Catholics
are Specially interested, is a feature of the magazine.

"Cath6lic Book Notes . . . an admirable record of- current literature
and a model of scholarly and thoroughly honest reviewing."

Catholic Encydopadia (art. Catholic Periodical Literature, EnglaniJ).

"We have often wondered why the Catholic Book Notes of London
has not a larger circulation among American Catholics. ' Among the few
purely critical literary reviews that we Catholics have in English, it is' far and
away the best. Its booknotices are iudicious and sanely critical."

Fortnightly Review (Illinois, U.S. A;).

" It is difficult to refrain from saying good words of this magazine, as they
rise to our lips every time we read its pages. Ordinarily, book reviews make
dreary reading indeed : not so those appearing in BooK Notes. Besides
theit outward interest, they have behind them the force of a strong, inteL-
lectual, highly cultivated personality." — Catholic Citizen.

"We have known ' C.B.N. ' for a mjmber of years, and would never
willingly miss a number. It is, as far as we know, the sole Catholic biblio-
grstphical journal in English, and is well worth the price charged for it. The
reviews, though brief, are searching, scholarly, and helpful, without bias, and
without favour ifor well-known names, and, generally speaking, the most
reliable of any Catholic magazine with which we are acquainted." -

- - Austral, Light.

Catholic; TrijTh Society, 69 Southwark BriI)ge Road, London, S:E.i

yxMJ'-H-'^ :jl

r^,

iMxi

.**■:**'